Abstract: The physical problem studied in this paper is the
influence of thermodiffusion effect on the entropy generation in steady state of
thermosolutal convection in a square cavity filled with a binary gas mixture
with one vertical wall heated and the other vertical wallis cooled, the remaining two walls are insulated. The analysis deals with
a numerical determination of the entropy generation on 2D approximation using
the finite volume method adapted to the staggered grid. In this study, the total
entropy generation is treated as a function of: (1)
the buoyancy ratio N, a parameter
measuring the intensity of the solutal buoyancy forces by report to the thermal
buoyancy forces, (2) the thermal diffusion ratio a parameter characterizing the
importance of thermodiffusion effect phenomenon and (3) the well known thermal
Grashof number Numerical results show that, when
the thermal buoyancy forces dominate the solutal buoyancy forces, values are not sensible for the
variation of In this case, thermodiffusion
effect has no influence on the entropy production. When the solutal buoyancy
forces dominate, thermodiffusion effect leads to an increase of the entropy
generation in both cases of opposite and cooperative buoyancy forces. It has
been found also, that the total entropy generation takes a minimum value which
is considerably dependent on the thermal diffusion ratio for higher values of
the thermal Grashof number. This minimum is found for and and is minimum for More details of the investigation
is focused for the special case when
Keywords and phrases: Soret effect, heat and mass transfer, entropy generation, numerical methods, cavity.
